Various vehicles such as cars, trucks, and airplanes, particularly military vehicles, are susceptible to attack by road-bed explosive devices such as land mines or IEDs that are triggered by passage of the vehicle over the explosive device. Various “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP)” vehicle seats have been developed in attempts to protect seat occupants from such explosions. Typically such seats provide conventional padding (such as foam rubber). Unfortunately such padding may actually intensify injuries received by the seat occupant as a result of an explosion. For example, it has been observed that forces from an explosion can compress foam rubber in the seat. This causes the occupant's body to “bottom out” against the seat frame, potentially causing an initial injury. Then a subsequent decompression or rebounding of the foam propels the occupant off the seat (like from a trampoline) at an acceleration rate that results from a combination of the blast forces plus the foam decompression forces. This acceleration may cause the occupant to be violently thrust against occupant restraint devices (such as seat belts shoulder belts, and harnesses) thereby causing a further injury to the occupant. After the vehicle and occupant reach the apex of the upward trajectory, gravity pulls everything back to earth and the occupant again compresses the foam and the occupant may again bottom out against the seat frame causing yet another injury. As the foam again decompresses the occupant is again thrust upward. Although the amplitude of the upward/downward movement decreases in each cycle due to dissipation of the initial shock energy, the compression/decompression of the foam seat typically multiplies the extent of occupant's injury. What is needed therefore are vehicle seat designs that provide better protection for a seat occupant than what is provided by conventional foam seats when a vehicle experiences an explosion from a road-bed explosive device or when a vehicle experiences shock forces and vibration forces resulting from other causes.